"Tell me, though. Perhaps the purpose runs."
"I was Gaston le Brut, de Joinville's body servant, and him crusading with Louis, King of France. Them wars is a muddle of battles, mud, and hunger, the pest, and slavery among the Paynim at Babylon the Less. The King and de Joinville got ransomed before they could raise the money to buy out us troops from the Soldan. It's all a muddle of bad management, but yes—I see—the ridge! the dragging my little master by the hand and he squealing 'Non! non! non!' but I made him see that which St. Louis didn't, the view of the Holy City through the heat mist faint in the distance, and the Hill of Skulls where I'd helped crucify my God! Oh, Christ Almighty!"
"The purpose runs, Rain," said the King of the Fairies. "Follow the quest. What was your next life?"
"When next we met," Rain answered, "I was what Storm calls Red Indian. I was Powhatan's daughter then. It was in those days that the English came first into our country—the land they call Virginia—yes, and the English called me Pocahontas. It wasn't my real name though. I wedded my man, and he was Master John Rolfe—a little widower. Twice he was Roman soldier, once he was thrall in Iceland, and then it seems crusader, and again John Rolfe the planter, and now what he calls bargee; but he is always Storm and I am always Rain, and we shall always love."
"And have you loved none other?" asked the King.
"Nay, but there was one I worshiped as though he were a god. Captain Johnsmith."
"Which," cried Storm—"I'd know that face among millions—was Leif Ericson, the man who found a new world."
"And in his next life," said the King of the Fairies, "founded the United States, eh?"
"Then that," cried Rain, "which we drop in the last life, we take up again in the next."
"The ship," answered the Fairy King, "carries on her journey during the night, and at the next daybreak is that much nearer to her haven. Now tell me of this present day's journey, which you mortals call a lifetime, down on earth."